Writing from antioch university, los angeles was a nonfiction at the Norman Mailer and private con massachusetts she lives and works in tempe. Were she is the founder and artistic sure of essential theater. She has taught nonfiction classes at Arizona State universitys studio and has directed creative writing programs for incarcerated youth and at a federal prison for women outside phoenix. Shes also raise your family here. As a matter of fact, her daughter was once a junior staffer in arcade section. Let me tell you, she was the darling of the kids Book Department not only for her love of votes, but also for her personal grace and charm winning smile much like her mothers. So, you can see susan and her family have been one of our regular patron and readers for many years now, one of her dearest friend. For many years weve known about the book shes been working on diligently, quietly. The topic so big and important, yet sensitive than heavy hearted enough that it had not been properly dealt with until now upon the 70th Year Anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on the nagasaki. The story had been untold. In nagasaki life after nuclear war, Susan Southard takes readers from the morning of the bombing should not miss hockey today, telling the firsthand experience of five survivors, all of whom were teenagers at the time of the bombing. The book was a finalist for the work in progress towards monster by Harvard UniversitysNieman Foundation at Columbia University school of journalism. The very book is now out with reviewers rightly recognizing his tremendous importance to merit. We are so very moved by the publication at last of this tremendous work and by its reception. Take a look at the reviews. Rich escorted a few of them on the table of books and we are so very fortunate and happy to welcome our dear friend, Susan Southard, to this stage. [applause] i dont know if those of you who dont know me well her giggles in the audience when she mentioned the people i dont know how you worded it, but people have been waiting for the book to come out. It has been a challenger process and am grateful for anyone i know who didnt doubt me or didnt say out loud that they doubted me. First of all, thank you so much for the beautiful introduction and for allowing me to have made a launch event here at changing hands, which has been an integral part of my life for the last 25 years. Its an honor. Good evening to all of you. I see many friends, colleagues and family here tonight and many of you i dont know what i look forward to getting to know you as well if we have time. Before i begin, a few people here tonight i would like to acknowledge. First, my family who have come across the country to commemorate this day with me. My parents, and gary and sue southard. My brother. Where are you . My brother rise and his partner, wendy bowen. My younger brother Jonathan Tran alive in his surprise me to hours ago by showing up at my house from l. A. And my absolutely beautiful daughter, forgive me for saying that out loud. Even who accompanied me on my very first trip to nagasaki in 2003 when she was 10 years old and grew up with this book. Over the past 12 years i heard a Wonderful Team of seven native japanese speakers to help veterans late historical documents, correspondence and hours and hours of survivor interviews. Three translators are here tonight. Toshio jones, medical studio sheet. Thank you. Id also like to express yes, lets give them a hand. [applause] there others who couldnt be here tonight and id like to express my deep gratitude to the plate so ill brag who worked sidebyside with me for eight years helping me translate survivors were into the most nuanced english we could find. Excellent administrative support for the book was provided and you can tell me where you are from a charlie brown, jeannie callahan, marine should avoid a quiz night here tonight and my daughter, eva. Ken black earned blackbird. Thank you for reagan at the various stages of development and providing valuable feedback. And finally robyn. This is robyn lavoie, an extraordinary historical researcher, thinker, colleague and friend whose deep intelligent and dedication helped me create and shape this book into its final form. [applause] im going to read several exparrot experts and postnuclear survival and after the rating there will be time for questions. The first segment can everyone hear me, first of all . The first segment alongside the vacuum at the bomb was dropped over nonmasaki from a modified t. 29 bombers six miles above the city. By this time in the story readers have been introduced to the five survivors whose stories are woven throughout the book. All of them teenagers at the time of the bombing. Materialism port and also difficult. I hope youll be able to bear it. Its about eight minutes long. The fivetime plutonium bomb plunge towards the city of 640 miles per hour. 47 seconds later a powerful implosion force the bombs account import to compress from the sides of the grapefruit tree tennis ball generating an instantaneous Chain Reaction of Nuclear Fission with colossal force and energy the bomb detonated a third of a mile above the 30,000 residents and workers. At 11 02 a. M. A super brilliant flash flood up the sky from as far away as the hospital more than 10 miles over the mountain bit equal to the power of 21,000 tons of tnt. The entire city come. The center of the explosion reach temperatures higher than the center of the son of velocity of shockwave exceeded the speed of sound good attempt of a millisecond later all the materials that is made up the bottom compartment to an ionized gas and waves were released into the air. Thermal heat of an internal temperature of 540,000 degrees fahrenheit. Within one second the blazing fireball expanded from 52 feet to it maximum size of 700 feet in diameter. Within three seconds to grab the low reached an estimated 547200 degrees fahrenheit directly beneath the bomb infrared heat blazed instantly carbonized human and animal flesh and vaporized internal organs. As the atomic cloud two miles overhead eclipse the sun, the bombs |verticalbar sure crashed much of that commie valley. Horizontal blast tour through the region at two and a half times the speed of a category five hurricane pulverizing buildings, trees, plants, animals and thousands of men, women and children. Every direction people were blown out of shelters, houses, schools and hospital beds. Or flattened beneath collapsed buildings. Those working in the field writing streetcars and standing in line for loan off their feet are hit by plummeting debris and press to discarding her. An iron bridge move 28 inches downstream as their buildings began to implode, patients and staff jumped out of the window said that not a sake Medical College in the West High School girls like from the third story of the Elementary School half mile from the blast. The blazing heat melted iron and other metals scorched bricks and concrete building, ignited clothing, disintegrated vegetation can cause severe and fatal flash burns on peoples exposed faces and bodies. A mile from the detonation the blast caused nineinch brick walls to crack and blast fragments are looking into peoples arms, legs, back from faces often punctured their muscles and organs. Two miles away people suffering flash burns for tragedy partially demolished buildings. Id distance is that to five miles, but in class printers ripped into their flash. Window shattered as far as 11 miles away. Larger doses of radiation than any human had ever received deep into the bodies of people and animals. The fireball section massive amount of dust and debris into it turning stem. A deafening roar erupted at buildings throughout the city shattered and crashed to the ground. It all happened in an dead. He bear this in the blinding light half a mile away before a powerful force hit powerful force hit him on his right side and hurled him in to the air. The heat was so intense i curled up like pseudo mag, dried squid he said in what felt like dreamlike slowmotion, yoshida was on back 130 feet across a field, wrote an irrigation channel had plunged to the ground with any nonis back in a rice paddy flooded the shallow water. Inside the weapons factory they had been wiping perspiration from her face and concentrating on her work one enormous blue white flash of light verse into the building followed by an earsplitting explosion in a torpedo had detonated inside the plant to herself on the ground and covered her head with their arms just as the fact tree came crashing down on top of her. Finishers laid share, taniguchi had been writing as bicycle through the hills in the northwest corner of the valley when a sudden burning wind rushed towards him from behind propelling him into the air in claiming him facedown on the road. They are through shaking so hard that i hung on as hard as i could so i wouldnt get blown away again. 15yearold noggin i was standing in my fact we protect and to some degree by distance and the weather not that stood between her and the bomb. The light flashed she remembered. A bomb had hit her building. She fell to the ground covering her ears and eyes with her thumbs and fingers according to her training as soon as crashed and all around her. She could hear pieces of 10 swirling and colliding in the air out my. Two miles southeast yelped streetcar driver was sitting in the lounge talking with his friends. The train cable . The whole city of nagasaki was indescribable. An unbelievably massive light lit up the whole city. A valid explosion rocked the station. Theyd dove for cover and in the next instant he felt like he was floating in the air before being slapped down before. Something of a landed on his back in a file unconscious. Beneath the Mushroom Cloud a huge portion of not a sake had vanished. Tens of thousands throughout the city were dead or injured. On the floor of the terminal, sawdust lay beneath a dream i was curled up on the airport and back to her mouth filled with glass slivers injured in the wreckage of the mitsubishi factory engulfed his mouth. Yoshino was barely conscious. His body and face brutally scorched. Taniguchis on, not yet realizing his back was burned off. He lifted his eyes just long enough to see a child swept away like a flick of dust. 60 seconds had passed. Most americans know little about the acute and longterm effects of radiation on the survivors body. Since its such a critical part of their post on lives because of the nation america has diverted its for 70 years i selected a short excerpt to give you a sense of what happened early on. You hear the name. Iraqis do key in this segment. Within a week of the bombings come up thousands of men, women and children in the surrounding region began to experience im going to bring us a little closer. Thank you. Within a week of the bombing, thousands of men, women and children in the surrounding region began to experience inexplicable combinations of symptoms. High fever, dizziness, loss of appetite, nausea, headaches, whole body weakness and fatigue. Their hair fell out in large clumps. Burns and lynn secreted extreme amounts of pass on their gums swell became given blood. Purple spots appeared on their bodies at first about the size of a pin one doctor recalled for growing in a few days to the size of a grain of rice story p. The spots were signs of hemorrhaging beneath the skin. Infection throughout the body were rampant including a large intention, esophagus, lungs and. In a few days of the appearance appearance of their initials and many people lost consciousness, mumbled deliriously and died in extreme pain. Others languish for weeks before either dying or slowly recovering. Even those who suffered no external injuries fell sick and died. Some workers and victims families who came into the area after the bombing also suffered serious illness. Fear grips the city as a pattern of symptoms, illness and death became clear come to some people polled on their hair every morning to see if the time had come. Many families turn where relatives and guests staying after the bombing and some farmers outside refused food to hungry refugees from the city. At first. There authors do key to some form of liver disease. Others that the illness is due to poisonous gas released by the bomb. August 15th when scientists confirmed a bomb had been dropped in nagasaki, what appeared to be an epidemic killing their city was related to radiation contamination. This is really not diseases and conditions but did nothing to minimize the terrifying truth about the invisible power of the bomb. People died one after another. The doctor likened the situation to the black death pandemic but devastated europe in the 1300s observing cremations taking place in his hospital yard he wondered if his body to make soon be burned. Life or death was a matter of chance, a state he said and the dividing line between the top are cremating him a slight. A second wave of radiation illness and death swept through the city in late august and Early September and continue through early october. Dr. Rp stookey in his whole staff can do with nausea, and fatigue which he remembered made me feel as if id been beaten all over my body. From his perspective from his burnout hospital on top of the geographical past the first people suffered and died from radiation related illness lived inside a shelter at the bottom of the hill. Fiona killed people in relative order according to distance or the atomic last. In the next year people grew sick they were carried to the hospital grounds by their neighbors who lived further up the hill in the distance between homes for the sake and his hospital became shorter and shorter. The families were attacked by radiation sickness. I remember this widening at dance i named this widening advance of the disease the concentric circle of death. He watched as his neighbor mr. Yamaguchi plus 13 family members from atomic bomb sickness. After reached at mr. Yamaguchi carried the body to the cemetery, double grave and called for the priest. A Church Ceremony to return home to care for the remaining family members all of whom had fallen ill. They are dying when i won he told the doctor. Who will send for the priest when i am dying . Who will dig my grave when i am gone. This is just a short note about what was going on in the United States at the same time. Highlevel officials adamantly and publicly refuted the news reports i have here a shame he nagasaki of large numbers of people are suffering and dying from radiation exposure. In late august and september general leslie groves, director ready atomic arms were developed try to deflect public discussion about the radiation effects by insisting upon its use in their decisive role in ending the war. The atomic amistad inhuman weapon. Our best answer to anyone who doubts this is we did not start the war and if they dont like the way we ended it to remember who started it. Later that year they testified before the u. S. Senate from radiation exposure is without undue suffering and a very pleasant way to dying. Im going to skip ahead 10 years now and take you to a new place. I will tell you about dolman nico. The first time i met 10 wives in 2003 in nagasaki and i was in a column and serve waiting for her at one end of a very large table enchanter from the far end. When i first set eyes on her, she took my breath away. She stood there so tall and with a presence unlike anyone ive ever met before. I learned later as a child die with athletic and strong willed and sometimes broke the rules to for fido in my book shows her in street clothes on the day she should have been wearing her school uniform. She liked to look nice. You will hear the word in this segment. It means a topic bomb come they were created to identify that it is in survivors of the atomic bombs. Doe was 15 at the time of the bomb. She was inside the mitsubishi weapons factory then imploded on top of her and thousands of men, women and didnt workers. To catch you up, she barely escaped the factory ruins before she fell unconscious unconscious so she waited for someone to find her. She is a wide gash on the back of her head running from one ear to the other. The first few months purple spots appeared on her body and she ran a high fever. Her poems were inflamed and she lost all of her hair. Her doctor told her parents she was dying and it was time to let her go. Still made it. Eventually move to radiation related symptoms disappear in her injuries for the most part healed that year after year her hair would not grow back. No hidden cider house staring at herself in the mirror. Instead of hair, soft raggedy fuzz grew on her scalp so thin entrance. The she let almost bald and even that would fall out and grow women followed again. Why me she fumed. Why do i have to say so ugly . I didnt do anything. She asked herself over and over what she should do if only shed been given. Eight years after the bombing she came to relation to do to find a way to transcend her atomic bomb experiment and create a new life for herself. Desperate to overcome her shame and reclaim her life, dont put on a black kerchief her mother made for her and stepped outside her house. She stayed close to home taken short walks in her immediate neighborhood. Later she heard that people call her a girl with a triangle cloth. Does father decided she should go to Dressmaking School so she could eventually support herself and have a good life. The commute to school required her to venture further from home. One day on her way home she saw fatigue middleage woman on a straw mat on the ground with a young child strapped to her back. Could you give me something the moment they everything is fine. Go drop some coins in her box and was overwhelmed by the thought of him only sound they make. What kind of life has this woman had she wondered. Did she lose her husband in the war or the atomic bomb . Under way home, dont imagine what it was like to live like this woman is awakened to the necessity of her own independence. She found a parttime job has a kitchen maker. Some of the later she was hired as a nagasaki representative. For the First Time Since the bombing, doe felt alive again and began envisioning the future for herself. She decided she wanted to live an authentic and full life for herself and for her friends who had died. Reconnect to her love of fashion, doe focused on cosmetics as a way to help women whose faces were scarred and burned. Halftime when not she wanted to test her potential. She wanted to leave her hometown to move to a b